Tag Archives: PowerSchool

As we enter student registration and summer programming signup season, we’ve received inquiries from a number of District staff members regarding Gmail sending limits. While most users of the District’s email system would never run into these limits, it’s important that staff members who are regularly communicating with large numbers of individuals be aware of the following limits:

There seems to be no end to the crazy weather we’ve had thus far this year! Now, not only has the weather complicated school day schedules and our academic calendar, but it’s also having an impact on technology.

ICCSD extended its second trimester to provide more contact time for Tri 2 courses that have already lost so much. In doing so, the District updated its term definitions in PowerSchool, extending the Tri 2 end date by a few days. In doing so, we accidentally broke Canvas grade synchronization. The bug is not one that Canvas was aware of, as it’s not often that institutions adjust term start/end dates in the middle of the year.

The good thing is that we have a solution. Teachers who utilize grade synchronization between Canvas and PowerSchool will need to reimport grading categories within each course. Instructions for doing so can be found in step 4 here, and after doing so, grade sync should work properly.

For those teachers who would like to take a deeper dive into Canvas, I recommend checking out this Canvas: Advanced Workshop slide deck. This resource can serve as a self-guided launching point to learn more about how Canvas can be leveraged in your classroom.

Among the topics that are included are:

Google Integration

Instructor Basics

Assignments and Grading

Assessments

Discussions

Text/Email Notification Settings

Mastery Paths (individualization/personalization)

Further, you’ll find a link to enroll in Kung-Fu Canvas, our Canvas course for instructors, where you can explore Canvas topics from basic to advanced.

We’ve received a number of support requests from individuals (students and teachers) who are missing courses in Canvas. In the vast majority of cases, the Canvas enrollments are correct, but the user dashboard is customized such that the courses don’t appear when the user logs in. Check out the steps (and video) below that show you how to customize which courses appear on your dashboard.

Interactive Projector Videos: these video-walkthroughs show you how to use common interactive projector functions, and how to connect wirelessly to a projector.

Classroom Technology Resources: these step-by-step guides will show you how to identify and use features of our classroom technology suite, including the new suite and the SMART Board/hub computer configuration.

We were notified today (see below) that Canvas has identified an issue – based upon ICCSD’s submission of the problem – with imports of assignment categories into Canvas from PowerSchool. While imports are working for some teachers, they are not working for others.

Canvas Support has sent us an update to apply which they believe will solve this issue. If you have had troubles importing assignment categories over the past few days, please try again after the update has been applied. We’ll update this post as soon as we’ve been able to implement this fix.

While I try to avoid getting too technical or specific in these blog posts, I’ve received enough questions on this topic in the past few days to think that it warrants its own mention. The issue is this: whereas our high schools and junior highs have 7 or 8 periods, PowerSchool has as many as 14 periods, depending on the building. When Canvas synchronizes section names from PowerSchool, it uses the PowerSchool period numbers, meaning that the periods shown in Canvas don’t necessarily match the actual period of the day. This results in section names that seem to indicate period numbers that don’t even exist, such as this section at North Central JH – an 8-period school – that appears to take place during period 14:

A technical limitation in Canvas does not allow two trimesters to be active at one time. As a result, district Canvas enrollment sync for third trimester is paused until Sunday evening, allowing teachers to finish second trimester grades and collect assignments without any technical problems.

This may result in students having incorrect third trimester enrollments in Canvas. PowerSchool is not impacted by this pause and students should use their PowerSchool schedule for class schedule data. Canvas enrollments should be corrected Sunday night and be ready for class on Monday morning. Canvas is working towards a solution to this inconvenience and hopes to have this problem corrected by fall. Sorry for any confusion this may cause.